Calvatia Gigantea
by Leikiz
Summary: Amanita Margatroid has uncovered a mystery: Why don't her parents live together? And more importantly, how is she going to fix it? [OC][Malice]
1. Chapter 1

The mansion standing alone in the sunflower field was decaying. It was Victorian, all ornate wood working and traceries, but the paint was sun-faded and peeling, and vines had twined up most of the exterior and burrowed inward. The entrance, once a looming set of double doors, was now open, one off its hinges entirely, the other propped open with a crate.

The blonde woman sitting on the crate was flipping her way through a catalog of plant samples, circling some with a pen, marking others out, humming idly all the while.

Further in, down a hallway crowded with potted plants, voices carried from the mansion's kitchen, weaving between the canopy of vines hanging from the ceiling.

"Ah, where was I?"

A tow-headed little girl fidgeted in her seat, thinking for a moment. "You were telling me about Makai."

"More tea?" the other asked.

"No thanks, Miss Yuuka. Mother's making dinner in a little while."

Yuuka shrugged, rolling the plaid shoulders of her blouse. "More for me." She topped up her teacup and returned to the table. It was small, more suited for a farmhouse than a mansion, but it alone seemed in place among the jungle of plants filling the house.

"We really ought to get you a day trip back there," she mused, taking a sip of her tea.

The girl set down her empty cup, glanced longingly at the plate of cookies, and then looked back at Yuuka. "Why?"

Yuuka's red eyes lit up. "Your mother never told you? Why, Amanita, how're you ever supposed to meet your grandmother?" She grinned at her guest. "Really now. Didn't even tell you that Granny Shinki is the _queen_ of Makai?"

Amanita stiffened in her seat. "Queen?"

"And Goddess! She- do have a cookie, dear. Otherwise Elly eats them all. She rules the entire realm."

Yuuka nudged the cookies a little closer to Amanita. After a moment's hesitation, the girl reached out and took one.

"I can understand not having met her," Yuuka continued. "But not even knowing about her? They didn't have _that_ much bad blood between them."

Amanita lowered her cookie half-eaten. She was frowning now, her blue eyes narrowed. "My mother doesn't get along with her mom either? And… Mama never sees her family."

"That's a bit different," Yuuka said. "Marisa's family are human. Her parents are quite old at this point, and they never did see eye-to-eye on her becoming a youkai."

"It just..." Amanita's frown deepened. "It just feels like my whole family… doesn't have a family?" She phrased it as a question, sounding out the thought as she said it. "My parents don't see their parents, and…" She trailed off, fidgeting with the cookie.

"Yes?" Yuuka said, motioning with a hand.

"Why doesn't my mother live with Mama?"

Yuuka's reply was cut off in a deep bass chime. A grandfather clock in the mansion's foyer was gonging, marking the hour with a sound loud enough to send splinters of rotten wood showering from its frame.

The two waited until it fell silent, and then Yuuka sighed. "It's time for you to be going."

"But-" Amanita got up, but stayed where she was. "Do you know why?"

"Walk with me."

Yuuka started off without waiting for a reply. Amanita had to scurry after her, brushing crumbs off her sundress as she ran.

They exited the manor. The blonde woman at the door came to attention as Yuuka passed, and waved goodbye to Amanita.

"Bye, Elly!" Amanita called over her shoulder.

They crossed into the sunflower field. The stalks were thick and tall, high enough to feel more like a forest than a field, and the air heavy with their scent. Amanita had to run to catch up to Yuuka.

"I've asked my mother before, but she never answered," she gasped. Ahead, Yuuka heard her and turned. The run had been a bit too much- Amanita was already breathless.

"Come here." Yuuka scooped her up like a kitten and began carrying her.

Amanita slowly caught her breath as Yuuka wove through the flowers. It was a few minutes before she could ask the question again. Yuuka ignored her.

The stalks parted ahead, and they came to the boundary of the field. The flowers gave way to forest, looking strange and out of place beside the orange and reds of the autumn leaves. Yuuka's field was eternally summer. Amanita didn't know how she managed it, and couldn't imagine the level of power to do such a thing, but she appreciated it. The flowers were lovely and vibrant, and visiting was always a treat.

Except for today. Now her insides were churning, and the ache in her chest was only partially from the running.

Yuuka set her down, but Amanita turned and caught at her host's dress. "Miss Yuuka, please."

But Yuuka shook her head. Her ever-present smile had faded. "That's a question for your parents. I have an idea, but the specifics aren't known to me." She sighed. "Here I was all set to plan a girl's weekend to Makai, and we ended up talking about this."

Amanita hung her head. "Sorry."

A calloused hand tousled her hair. "Not your fault, brat. You needed to find out sooner or later. Now- you have your little friend to lead you home, correct?"

Amanita nodded. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly. Almost at once, the ground shook and a squat little form burst out of the dirt.

The creature was about four feet tall, stocky, its body the color of pale mold, but the cap atop its head was a brilliant, speckled red. It was a walking mushroom.

It scooped Amanita up without fanfare and sat her atop its cap. She sunk into the soft flesh slightly, but balanced easily on her mount.

"And your hat?" Yuuka added.

Amanita tugged the sunhat from its spot on her back to her head, forcing her curls under it. She smiled weakly from beneath the wide brim. "Thank you for the tea and cookies, Miss Yuuka."

Yuuka shrugged. "You know where I live. Come see me again."

With a nudge, Amanita directed the mushroom man to start walking. "Bye."

"There are seeds in your pocket," Yuuka called after her. "Plant them in your garden. The mushrooms should like them."

Amanita twisted round to give her thanks, but Yuuka was already gone, vanished into her fields like a wraith.

She sighed and patted her familiar's cap. "Cmon, let's go home."

XXX

Yuuka's current location wasn't terribly far from the Forest of Magic. The sunflower fields tended to slide around Gensokyo when Amanita wasn't paying attention, and it had become one of her favorite activities every spring to seek out the little oasis of color to meet Yuuka.

It was the first time Yuuka had actively refused to talk about a subject with her though. There had been previous occasions where she'd changed the subject or demurred, but she'd never stopped a conversation dead.

Amanita crossed her legs and cradled her chin in her hands. It would be faster and easier to get home if she could fly, but it was beyond her. Too much exertion.

Ostoyae made up for it though. The mushroom man started running as soon as they entered the forest, and did not slow. She jiggled up and down on his head, but it was like riding on a very spongy horse. His crown absorbed most of the motion. He was tireless, just smart enough that she only had to prod him a bit to get him going, and he'd handle the rest.

And that left her with nothing to do but sit and think while he ran.

Her parents not living together wasn't a new thing. They'd lived apart as long as she could remember, each in a little cottage in the Forest of Magic. Every week, Amanita would go to live at a different parent's house. Mama and Mother spent time together once in a while, and they'd gone on trips as a family, but they didn't live together.

And… she hadn't really thought it was odd until she started school. Most of the human children in class had moms and dads who lived together- if they were both alive, and that was _normal_. But her parents were both youkai, so she'd just accepted it as something that came with the territory.

Reiko's moms didn't live together, and that made sense. Reiko's one mom was the shrine maiden, and her other mom was Yukari, and of _course_ a youkai wasn't going to live at the Hakurei shrine.

But… the miko was a human, and Yukari was a youkai. So that wasn't quite the same.

And didn't the Moriya temple have a pair of goddesses that lived together?

She frowned deeper and deeper.

Any way you sliced it, her family wasn't normal.

Ostoyae crossed the unseen border that marked Amanita's range. She relaxed a little as the network of fungal growth beneath the ground touched her mind. The roots covered a nearly two mile circle around her mother's cottage, and they grew a little each day. In a few years, it would be large enough to connect with the identical root system beneath Mama's house, and it would be like being with both of them at once.

It was her version of Yuuka's field. Within its range, she was stronger, not so _weak_ , and most of the spells she'd made were actually possible. But more than that… she was home.

A home.

Her frown returned.

Another exception occurred to her. Two homes. Didn't one of the girls in her class have two homes? And… yes. She did.

That girl's parents were _divorced_.

Amanita sat up straight, suddenly nauseous in a way that had nothing to do with how Ostoyae was jouncing through a rocky section of forest.

She swallowed, then reached down and prodded his cap. "Faster. Go faster."

Ostoyae clapped the knotty growths that were his hands together; his version of ' _yes,'_ and then sped up. The trees raced by around them, and Amanita ducked down, lowering herself so he could go even faster.

In a matter of moments, the treeline broke around them, and Ostoyae came skidding into the neat clearing that surrounded her mother's house. A few dolls were trundling about doing yard work, but most had gone back inside for the day.

Amanita banished Ostoyae mid-step. He dropped seamlessly into the ground, rejoining with the main body of fungus, and she touched down running, moving fast enough that she nearly flipped over the neat stones of the front walk.

She went pattering up the walk, her heart thudding painfully from the sudden exertion, and then flung open the front door.

"Mum!"

Silence.

The house was quiet. Not fully quiet- it never was; there were always dolls moving about doing little tasks for Mum, but there was no comforting voice, no sound of footsteps.

Amanita hovered on the doorstep for a moment, listening as hard as she could. Perhaps her mother had simply been napping or busy or- or something, and-

A rustle. A Shanghai doll sitting on the sewing table was waving to her. It held up a piece of paper.

Amanita snatched it away, and the doll immediately stopped moving. The magic animating it had been for that purpose only. Mum liked those kinds of things when she wasn't around. Because she definitely wasn't around.

She read quickly. Frowned. Read it again, more slowly.

 _Amanita,_

 _I've been called away on urgent business. I hate leaving you like this, but it was a matter of gravest importance and could not wait. The shrine maiden, your mother, myself, and several others will be occupied with this for several days at the minimum._

 _Please understand that I do this only because all of Gensokyo is at stake, and Yakumo-san wasn't able to spare the time to fetch you._

 _There is food in the icebox if you want supper, but I want you to go to Uncle Rinnosuke's until I am back. It's not safe for you to be home alone for that long. I was able to send word to him with one of the dolls, so he should be coming to fetch you._ _Do not go looking for him on your own._

 _There are an Orleans and a Hourai on your bed. Touch their foreheads to activate them. They have standing orders to protect you._

 _Stay safe until I return,_

 _Mum_

The page dropped from numb fingers to slide under the table.

Amanita slowly pushed her hat off and let it fall as well.

The only thing that made its way past the mind-numbing panic was the foulest word she knew.

" _Fudge!_ "

XXX

Couldn't think of a title, so I ended up looking up mushroom names for ideas. Enter Calvatia Gigantea, or literally- The Gigantic Puffball.

And instantly, I had not only a title, but also a descriptor for Amanita.

Inspiration for this story was... not really sure on what the specific moment of generation was, but the general tone of light-hearted antics and dealing with the daughter of a Malice relationship came largely from 'The Dollmaker's Daughter.' Go read it, because it's hella adorbs.


	2. Chapter 2

2

Amanita paced back and forth through her garden, grumbling down the rows. Fear had given way to frustration after an hour or so of huddling in bed, wishing for her mother to come home so she could have some answers.

And now she was downright grumpy. What were the odds? That _both_ her parents would just happen to vanish the moment she really needed them, spirited off by Yukari to parts unknown for who knew how long.

"This- _stinks!_ " she yelled, kicking at a table. The trestle rattled, the pots shaking, but it mostly just hurt her foot. Amanita hissed, bouncing on one foot as she nursed her injured toes.

Stupid Yukari.

Amanita returned to her pacing, now limping a little.

The basement of her mother's cottage was Amanita's. She'd colonized it with mushrooms by the time she was six, and the only real changes over the years had been the increasing complexity and organization as Mum trusted her with more gardening equipment.

It was dim and dank, and very musty with all her growing fungi, but it was her space, and it was safe.

Normally.

Now it felt hollow, because she wasn't just home alone, but home alone in a house that was feeling increasingly alien.

Why didn't her parents live together? Why had they never talked to her about it?

She was eleven, old enough that they didn't have to pull their punches. It was like when she was a kid and they told her tall tales about a magic German elf that delivered presents at the holidays, when it was clearly just Yukari being festive.

She huffed.

Not even the endless trays of rotting, loamy wood and pale mushrooms could interest her at the moment. Mushrooms were only fun if she had someone to show them. Like how Mum always showed her her newest dolls, or Mama always had a new potion to try out.

Amanita grumbled some more, but she was losing steam. She just didn't have the endurance to stay angry for long, and she was getting hungry. It would normally have been dinner time.

After a long moment of weighing continued anger against food, food won out.

She stomped upstairs and into the kitchen. True to her word, Mum had left a couple covered dishes in the ice box, each cover stamped with a green rune of Stasis to keep them fresh.

Amanita set her place at the table and dug in.

The sun was beginning to go down outside, turning the treetops orange. Rinnosuke should have shown up by now.

And… she took a bite, frowning, chewing over the thought.

She didn't want him to show up.

Uncle Rinnosuke was nice, and basically Mama's older brother, but she didn't want to see him right now. He knew her parents, but he also wouldn't answer any of her questions about them. He was one of those people who didn't like to tell kids anything interesting.

It would be off to bed as soon as they got to the shop, and then she'd never find out. It would just be a couple days of helping him clean and dust, all the while agonizing over her moms.

She finished her food and pushed the plates away, staring into space.

Rinnosuke would be no help.

...who would?

Yuuka normally, but that ship had already sailed. Who else did she know? Her parents both had friends. The shrine maiden was one, but she was gone, and so was Yukari, who knew everything that happened in Gensokyo.

Mama played cards against some of the other forest-dwellers sometimes. But Amanita didn't know where the Phoenix-woman lived, and the bamboo forest was dangerous (and scary) at night.

Her mother… who were her mother's friends? It seemed like Mum disapproved of everyone interesting. Even visiting Yuuka every year had been a bitter argument, and Mum still gave Yuuka the stink-eye whenever she thought Amanita wasn't looking.

But Mum did know other magicians. The rainbow-haired lady who lived in the boat temple. And Patchouli.

Amanita stood up from the table.

Patchouli was not only her mother's friend, but they both did magic stuff together. Amanita had only met her a handful of times; the mansion was pretty far away, and Lady Scarlet was another person who Mum didn't approve of. But even Mama knew Patchouli, albeit for reasons that Amanita wasn't privy to, and that always made Mum embarrassed.

That settled it.

She did the dishes and snuffed all the lights in the cottage before locking the door. Shanghai and Orleans, she left behind. They'd just try to stop her from going.

The sun had fallen far enough behind the trees now that she no longer needed her hat, so she hung it from its cord around her neck and called Ostoyae.

The mushroom man resurfaced at once. He looked a little different every time she called him, but it was just external details. He came from the same giant fungal network, and that was what mattered.

He lifted her into place, and she pointed into the forest. "Onward, my trusty steed!"

XXX

The forest at night was darker than she'd imagined it. Even with her parents along, there hadn't been many nighttime trips through the woods.

The trees were thick, branches snarled together into a canopy that blocked out the stars. Ostoyae had slowed, having to pick his way over roots and around drop-offs. Amanita huddled atop his head, squinting into darkness that not even her eyes could penetrate. Neither of her parents were nocturnal youkai, and only the scatterings of moonlight that made it through the canopy let her see at all.

It was getting chilly. Not just the wind and the air, but the way the forest felt. She was shivering, hands in her armpits for warmth, and it was getting worse. Ostoyae sounded like a bull galumphing through the woods, and she kept glimpsing little fairy lights far off in the trees, almost like glowing eyes. Watching them?

Something was watching them, she knew that.

The Scarlet Devil Mansion was roughly north-east from the cottage. Once she made it through the forest, she'd be at the lake. It would be a pain in the neck to have to walk around it, but at least she'd be able to see the mansion once she got out there.

Ostoyae stepped around a thicket of brambles, and Amanita ducked her head to avoid clutching branches in her hair.

Her Mama gathered mushrooms out here, and Amanita did too, but she'd never been allowed on any hunts after dark.

She was beginning to understand why. The forest had presence like it was one giant youkai. She felt tiny, nothing more than a seedling beside a redwood. It was… it was like what she imagined humans felt like around youkai. Weak and feeble and clumsy. Like prey.

She dipped to get by a hanging vine, and-

Something split the air over her head. Branches cracked behind her, and something went crashing into the underbrush. Amanita shrieked with surprise, nearly toppling off Ostoyae. The mushroom man spun, gnarled fists raised like a boxer.

The thing in the underbrush straightened, coming clearly into view.

A youkai. Some kind of feline, with sharp, tufted ears.

"Hey there, little girl," the youkai called. "What are you? You smell tasty."

Amanita swallowed. The cat was older than her, built like a teenage human. It didn't mean as much to a youkai, but size and maturity generally lined up with strength. The cat was older and stronger; a forest native, which meant she had plenty of experience hunting down food.

Normally, this would be the time for a danmaku battle. Except Amanita didn't have the magical reserves for it outside of her field. Win or lose, she'd be too exhausted to do anything after a fight.

"Aww, cmon, don't be shy," the cat said. She was padding slowly toward Amanita, tail swishing behind her, eyes narrowed.

"I'm a poison mushroom!" Amanita yelled. "Eat me and die."

The cat actually stopped. She examined Amanita, lips pursed, head tilted. "You smell like a magician."

Amanita shook her head furiously. "Mushroom youkai. I'm a zillion types of toadstool spirit all mixed together. Poisonous enough that I have tea-parties with Medicine Melancholy."

"Liar." The cat grinned at her. "You can't lie worth a damn, magical girl."

Amanita opened her mouth to say something else when the cat lunged. She came in, claws out, leaping through the air. Ostoyae swung at her, but the cat wove around his clumsy haymakers with ease. She was actually laughing at him.

"Too slow! Too slow!"

The cat lashed out and sliced one of Ostoyae's arms off. He staggered, and Amanita clutched at his cap to keep from falling.

"Gotcha!" A hand wrapped around her wrist, and Amanita screamed.

The cat had hold of her in a grip easily stronger than anything Ostoyae could muster, and was pulling her away.

"Get off!" Amanita yelled. All thoughts of what her parents had told her to do in a fight were gone, lost in her panic. She inhaled, her narrow chest swelling, and blew a cloud of spores straight in the cat's face.

The youkai laughed for a moment, then blinked. And then she released Amanita altogether to fall back, yowling and clutching her eyes. "Burns! Ahhggrrh! Dammit, you little brat!"

"Run!" Amanita slapped Ostoyae's cap, and he took off, fast enough that she didn't have time to do more than hang on.

Behind them, there was a crash and a furious shriek as the cat took up the chase.

Ostoyae was running at top speed, but Amanita had control this time. He was a mindless mushroom- it was effortless for her to reach out and simply take control.

She had to. Her heart was in her throat, and the cat sounded like she was gaining. Amanita forced Ostoyae faster and faster, using her control to send him careening through the forest.

There were other noises now, crashing in the brush to the sides as other youkai took up the pursuit. Something reared up in front of them, only for Ostoyae to plant both feet in its face and roll right over top of it.

They kept going. There was a faint howl behind them as the cat ran into whatever the other youkai was. The sounds of squabbling faded into the distance as Ostoyae ate up ground.

Amanita was gasping atop his back, short of breath from fear even as he did all the work. It was his purpose; to make up for her short-comings. He was earning his keep more than ever. Little by little, the other youkai fell away for easier prey, but Ostoyae went relentlessly onward, leaving them far behind.

She wasn't sure how long they ran. The minutes blended together, all endless trees and dark shadows under the moonlight, broken only by new youkai surfacing to swipe and claw at them. Ostoyae lost his other arm, and- in a moment that left Amanita shrieking like a banshee, had the entire plane of fungal tissue that formed his face cleaved off by an insectile youkai with huge, scything claws.

They ran. And ran. And _ran_.

And then the trees broke around them, and Ostoyae skidded to a stop on the line where dirt met sand.

They'd made it to the lake.

Amanita took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped her face on her sleeves.

Why had she thought this was a good idea? Hadn't her parents warned her how dangerous the forest was at night? She was stuck now. There was no way to get home without going through the forest, so the only way to go was onward.

Ostoyae began plodding along the shore. Amanita sat on his cap, wrapped herself in her arms, buried her chin in her knees, and shivered. Her hair was knotted, tangled around a dozen twigs and leaves, but she couldn't bring herself to fix it.

Stupid. Stupid. _Stupid_.

All because she hadn't wanted to go to Uncle Rinnosuke's. Where it was safe and warm and a little boring, but still safe. He'd be tucking her in right now, and if she was lucky, he'd dig out an outsider book to read from before she fell asleep.

Ostoyae climbed over a mound of driftwood, and Amanita had to break her reverie to clutch his head.

She forced herself to take stock of her surroundings.

The lake was to her right, wide enough and foggy enough that she couldn't see the far shore. Couldn't see more than a hundred meters, really. There were scatterings of fairy lights in the mist, but they didn't have the same malevolent feel that they had in the forest. Far off, she could even hear the faint sound of splashing water and voices as the lake youkai played together in the mists.

The Scarlet Devil Mansion would be at the north side of the lake. She'd approached the lake from the west. So she just needed to keep walking clockwise to get there.

Eventually.

Even if the lake shore was not so much empty as _deserted_ , and the murky waters really not that much different than the dark woods in terms of what they could be hiding.

She nudged Ostoyae up to a run again. He was slower now, without his arms to build momentum, and his steps were a little unsteady. Tireless, he may be, but he was just a mushroom.

Amanita stayed vigilant as Ostoyae ran. The beach was better than the forest in that regard. She had a clear thirty meters on every side, which meant no one could-

Someone dropped out of the sky in front of her.

Amanita screamed. Ostoyae screeched to a halt, his lumpy feet digging up furrows in the sand.

The newcomer hovered a few inches off the ground, her arms folded.

"Oi oi, who's this?"

It was a fairy. An odd fairy. Taller than normal, the teal-haired girl was nearly Amanita's height, with delicate wings like ice spun across glass dangling from her shoulders.

"Wotcha doin on my beach, you..." the fairy paused, squinting at them. "Mushroom-stack?"

"I was just walking and minding my own business," Amanita said carefully. "Also, I'm extremely poisonous, so you can't eat me."

The fairy snorted. "Eatcha? Forget it. I'm 'ere for danmaku."  
Amanita went very still. This might actually be worse than the cat youkai. Danmaku imposed bargains, but failing to rise to a battle would be an invitation for the fairy to do her worst. It was like giving the fairy an excuse to do whatever she wanted.

"T-terms?"

"If oi win, you gotta be my minion!" The fairy nodded at this, like it made perfect sense.

"And if I win, you let me go?"

"Sure sure, whatever."

"Unharmed, from you and any of your friends."

The fairy rolled her eyes. "Oi _said_ whatever!"

Okay. She just had to win a danmaku fight with no spellcards or magic. And if she lost, she'd be magically obligated to be this weird fairy's minion. Whatever that entailed.

Amanita glanced over her shoulder and paled. There were a few other fairies hovering behind her, watching the proceedings. No running that way. And they could fly. Which meant they'd catch her before she made it into the forest.

What would her mother do? Master Spark them. Not an option.

How about her Mum? She'd have blasted everyone with dolls already. Also not an option.

"Well?" the fairy said. She'd uncrossed her arms, and was already beginning to flex her wings in preparation for the fight.

Amanita fished in her pockets. Maybe she had a spellcard left over in a pocket somewhere? Or a mushroom she could harness into a weapon.

Her fingers closed around something and she withdrew it triumphantly.

A packet of seeds.

Hope died in her chest with a cold, sinking sensation.

"Give ya to the count of 'five' and Imma just gonna wop you into the lake," the fairy interjected. "Now quit playin round with that junk."

Paper crackled as she curled her fist around the seeds. Useless. They were Yuuka's plants. She had no control over them. They were-

Yuuka's.

What would Yuuka do?

She'd make it interesting, because that was what she enjoyed. Didn't matter if she won or lost as long as it was intriguing.

"How about a change?" Amanita cried. "A- uh- not danmaku, but uh-" She searched desperately for inspiration. "Jan-ken-pon!"

The fairy gave her a flat look. "You kiddin, mushroom-stack?" A smirk bloomed on her lips turning her childish face suddenly feral. "You're dealin with Kyusei, twelve-time jan-ken champion of all the fairies."

Amanita tried to muster her mother's devil-may-care smile. It didn't quite come out, but she nodded all the same. "Same terms."

"One game," Kyusei added. "Oh- and nunna that addin moves nonsense. It's Jan-ken-pon, not Jan-ken-laser beam like half these goons think."

One of the fairies hovering in the background shifted guiltily at that.

Amanita held out her fist. "On three?"

Kyusei nodded.

Together, they both yelled "Jan! Ken! Pon!"

Amanita didn't think. She threw rock simply because she was too stiff with nerves to open her hand.

The fairy had thrown paper.

"One to me," she said, grinning.

"Don't get carried away," Amanita said. No big deal. She'd just wagered her future on a children's game. How was she supposed to explain _that_ to her parents?

Fists out.

"Jan! Ken! Pon!"

Amanita threw scissors.

Kyusei threw paper. She scowled at Amanita. "Beginner's luck."

"Final round."

They threw. Amanita felt like she was moving in slow motion.

Possibilities raced through her head. Was the Kyusei dumb enough to throw paper a third time? Fairies were dumb. She'd done it twice. But what if that was a trick?

Her fingers twitched through the choices.

And then-

Scissors.

She looked down slowly.

The fairy had thrown rock.

 _Oh_.

Her life was over.

All because she'd wanted to know about her parents. The first time she'd ever strayed out of bounds and this was where it had left her.

Amanita looked numbly between her hand and the Kyusei's, willing it to change.

"Oi win!" Kyusei crowed, raising her hands to the sky. "Oi'm the strongest!" After a moment basking in the scattered applause of the other fairies, she let her arms drop and turned to Amanita. "Deal's a deal. You get to be a minion now."  
Her life was over and she was never going home.

Amanita sniffled.

They'd been a long time coming, just brimming under the surface after the forest, but this was just too much. Losing her future over a dumb game.

She burst into tears.

There was a moment of stillness, broken by her muffled sobbing, as all the fairies stared at her.

"Quit blubbin," Kyusei snapped. "'s really weird." She reached out and hooked her arms under Amanita's shoulders. It took only a bit of flight for her to lift Amanita off Ostoyae's head and drop her into the sand.

Amanita curled into a ball, whimpering, her face sand-caked where it was wet.

"Seriously, quit it," the fairy repeated, sounding uncomfortable. Then she grabbed hold of Ostoyae's cap and lifted off.

Amanita blinked, then gaped at her. "What are you doing?"

Kyusei hovered a few feet off the ground, Ostoyae wiggling like a giant eel in her grip. "Don't try to play tricks on me, mushroom-girl. Oi know you're like one of them kogasas. The girl part is fake- the real you is the mushroom bits!"

And with that, she turned in the air and scooted off over the lake, Ostoyae dangling just above the water. The other fairies zoomed after her, all beginning to talk and laugh at the events.

Amanita stared after them.

Fairies really were dumb.

Slowly, she got to her feet and began trudging along the shore toward the SDM. She could see the lights now, far off in the distance, but still- she could see them.

And if anyone else tried to jump her tonight, she was going to curl into a ball and just let them try and eat her.


	3. Chapter 3

Amanita trudged.

It had been several hours since her run-in with the fairies, long enough for the moon to pass its zenith. The SDM's lights had grown slowly, but she was only just beginning to be able to make out the mansion through the mists.

For the first time, she had a true idea of just how large Gensokyo was. This was a journey that had been made before, but always in the arms of her mother. The work of an hour at most, and even that was only if there was danmaku involved.

The scope of it… of the lake. She'd never realized. Gensokyo had only been navigable from the sky. Walking on the ground, on her own two feet… She was small. Small and exhausted. Ostoyae's purpose as her chariot had always been practical. He protected and carried, simply because she didn't have the stamina for it.

One of the straps on her mary janes had snapped, and now every step jostled the shoe on her foot. It was rubbing against her heel, the stocking sticking to her skin in a tender spot. Blistering, little by little. Amanita would have just removed it and walked in her bare feet, but the beach in this area of the lake was closer to gravel than sand, all sharp little stones, and carpeted liberally with jags of driftwood.

She was trying to ignore the pain, but there was nothing else to think about. Her running inner monologue of 'stupid stupid stupid, this idea was so stupid' had died out about an hour ago, her thoughts just as exhausted as she was. She ached all over, she was cold, and she had nowhere to go but the SDM.

There was no turning back through the forest, and sleeping on the beach was just asking to get eaten by a- a lake monster or something. She was pretty sure those existed.

Trudging.

Trudging.

And on.

She was just climbing over a beached log, the thick bark spongy and waterlogged, when the wind picked up. Amanita hissed, dropping to a crouch on the log, glancing around for another fairy coming her way.

After a moment of heart-in-her-throat panic, nothing materialized. The wind rustled the trees a bit, but the beach was otherwise silent.

She glanced around again, just to be sure. Looked up- because that was never happening again.

All clear.

Except… what was that out on the lake?

Her eyes widened. The wind had parted the omnipresent layer of mist that lay over the lake's surface. It was still there, but she could see a bit further out onto the lake now.

A jagged spire of rock thrust out of the lake, rising to a point that nearly pierced the moon. Mount Umbra was, despite its name, closer of a fortress than a mountain. Except it was a fortress in the same way that the Scarlet Devil Mansion was a house. Another thing that she'd never really grasped the size of until now. Seeing it from the air didn't capture the sense of menace, of the way it towered over the lake, watching everything around it from candlelit windows like hollow eyes.

Amanita found herself thinking of the books her mother had in her shelf. Not a magical book, but a book of magic and elves and dragons. Mount Umbra reminded her of something from that book. A thing of Mordor.

The fog was beginning to creep back together, blunting the details of the fortress. It was crouched there like a tiger, biding its time behind the curtain of mist. Not gone. Just waiting.

Ostoyae was out there. Amanita sniffled at the thought. Just because he was only a tiny portion of the fungal network, and they couldn't technically hurt him didn't mean it didn't upset her.

He was her friend, and he didn't deserve to get dragged off to that horrible place by Kyusei.

She sniffed again and forced herself to start walking again.

It wasn't the first time she'd lost part of Ostoyae, but this felt _worse,_ somehow.

Guilt made her steps that much heavier.

XXX

She wanted to stop, but it would be impossible to get moving again. Momentum was all that kept her going at this point.

One foot in front of the other, toes scuffing in the sand, one heel sticky with blood. Left. Right.

Left. Le-

Not sand, but stone. She stumbled. Went down, hands scraping on the rock.

The pain wiped away some of the haze in her thoughts- she hadn't realized how murky things had gotten until just then. Where- where even was she? She couldn't remember the last ten minutes or so.

Amanita looked down. Her hands were resting on smooth, even, cobbled bricks.

A path.

She looked up.

The SDM was just ahead, filling the sky in front of her, its clocktower like a second moon.

" _Yes_! Yes, yes, yes!" She scrambled up, whispering to herself, the words whistling in her throat.

She'd made it.

A glance over her shoulder, just to check- a solitary line of dragging footprints ran far off into the night, vanishing beyond the range of her vision. It had to have been ten kilometers at least, from the spot where she'd first found the beach.

Hope gave her the strength to rise. Her palms stung, and her throat felt like someone had sand-papered it, but she had _made it_. She was still stumbling, her feet and ankles stiff as boards, but there was new energy in her steps.

Just a bit further.

Neat rows of trees framed the path, their canopy shading it, covering the bricks with dead leaves. These trees were a world apart from those in the forest of magic though. There was no menace in them.

And just ahead, the trees ended. There was a space separating them and the dark stone of the outer walls. Amanita came into the open space, her steps slowing a bit.

The SDM's gates were absurdly tall, standing far above even the oaks that led up to them. They were a maze of metalwork, all curving, interlocking lines in baroque designs. There was a guard post to the right of the gates, just an awning over a little booth against the wall.

The woman there was watching her.

Amanita approached her, arms folded round her chest, head down.

The gate guard was sitting with her legs crossed under her, and was still head and shoulders taller than Amanita. Her brilliant red hair was held back with a gold clasp, the metal accentuating the slitted, deep blue eyes currently evaluating Amanita.

Hong Meiling blinked, squinting at her. She leaned forward a bit. "C'mere."

Amanita moved forward a few inches.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Tetchy. Aren't you Alice's kid?"

"Y-yes." Amanita swallowed. "Ma'am."

"You need something?"

"I wanted to see Miss Patchouli, ma'am."

"Meiling, not 'ma'am.'" she said. Amanita realized for the first time she had a long-stemmed pipe in her lap, though it wasn't lit. Meiling slid the pipe into her dress before rising smoothly, brushing her green dress out as she moved.

Amanita had to take a step back to look up and meet Meiling's eyes again.

"You're not here to steal anything for your other mama, are you?"

"What?"

"Kirisame." Meiling leaned forward, forcing Amanita back another couple of steps. "This isn't a distraction or something, is it?"

Amanita shook her head. "My parents are both- ah, _out_. There was an incident."

"Oh, right. They would be." Meiling shrugged, looking slightly abashed. "You wanted to see Patche for magician stuff?"

"Sort of."

Meiling grunted, shrugging again, and rose. "Come on. You don't look like you're in any condition to steal anything anyway."

She turned and pushed one of the gates open. Amanita stared.

They hadn't even been locked? Although… basically everyone in Gensokyo could fly anyway… so…

She scurried in after Meiling.

The SDM's courtyard was a landscape painted in moonlight. Lush, elegantly groomed gardens gleamed in silver, flowers accenting topiary and statues of fantastic beasts. Here and there a fountain broke the silence with the gentle sound of trickling water. It was a far cry from the wild beauty of Yuuka's gardens, but it was lovely nonetheless.

"Are you coming?" Meiling's voice interrupted her thoughts, and Amanita started. She'd been staring.

"Sorry. The- the gardens are very nice."

Meiling's bushy eyebrows rose and she grinned. "Thanks. I bust my hump keeping those together."

They started walking again. Amanita found herself jogging to keep up with Meiling's impossibly long legs. Her newfound store of energy burnt through quickly, and she was lagging and panting before long.

"Oh, come here." And then hands caught her and scooped her up. Amanita went up and up before being deposited to sit on Meiling's shoulders, the woman holding her ankles to keep her in place.

"Thank you, ma- Meiling."

"'s nothing. Your parents are good people, so you are too."

Amanita found herself staring down at the gate guard in mild amazement. Ostoyae had nothing on this Amazon. She could feel iron hard muscles rippling beneath her, and Meiling was tall enough that it felt like riding on two Ostoyaes stacked on top of each other. Now she wanted to see if she could grow a mushroom man this tall, or this tough.

Amanita was still goggling when Meiling slipped through a side door into the mansion.

The door shut behind them, cutting off the last of the cool night air, and the mansion closed in around them. It was dim, lit with only a handful of flickering gas lamps. The air carried an undercurrent. The faint, musty scent of an old house. And blood. The copper undertone had never varied in all the times Amanita had visited.

Meiling stopped, her shoulders tensing. " _Shit_. Forgot about them."

"Who?" Amanita whispered.

"Quiet."

Meiling turned and began moving down a side hallway, pants swishing as her strides lengthened. She took turns seemingly at random, cut through a doorway, and then took a narrow staircase upward, taking them three at a time.

They had just crested the top, Meiling nudging the door open, when Amanita felt the air change.

There was _presence._

Meiling stiffened, her pace slowing, and crept out of the stairwell. They emerged onto an upper passageway, one side open, looking down on a hall tall enough that the ceiling was lost in the darkness.

Breath died in Amanita's throat.

Her sixth sense was screaming. The presence was like being back in the forest again. Being small and insignificant, dwarfed by something immense behind imagination. Only now it was condensed. That had been hundreds of square miles of forest, all saturated with millennia of magic. This was all of that, pressed to one, impossibly dense point in space.

It was like those star objects in that book Rinnosuke had given her. Black holes. Something so dense and all-consuming that nothing could escape it.

There was a low wall separating the passage from the sheer drop beyond, decorated with fluted, flower-carved columns. Meiling lowered Amanita to the marble and crept forward, hiding herself behind the column and peering down. Slowly, moving like her bones were glass, Amanita walked forward to press against it. She was just barely tall enough to see over the railing.

She wished she wasn't.

Far below, figures were emerging from a door onto the checkered tile of the entryway. First came a woman in blue with wings that reminded Amanita of Kysuei, and who was cold enough that Amanita's third eye ached just looking at her, like trying to stare into a frozen wind only for it to bite.

Others, fairies, she thought, came next, small beside the blue woman. Her retinue?

A woman in gray, wearing a muted green cape, shorter than the blue woman, but built more like Meiling. Whip-thin, with a fighter's poise. This woman too had a small crowd trailing her. She was talking to someone out of sight.

Her focus joined them a moment later. Gray haired, clad all in white and gray, like a beam of moonlight. Red eyes flashed, visible even from a distance. This one, Amanita knew. Sakuya. She had no presence at all. Not a void in Amanita's sixth sense, but just not _there_.

Sakuya said something to the other woman, who nodded, smiling.

And then they all turned, looking through the doors again.

The black-hole was moving.

Amanita had her hands fisted in her dress, her breaths catching in her throat again. The sheer weight of whoever was down there was mind-numbing.

The woman who stepped into view was blonde, her hair bobbed. For a sudden, ridiculous second, Amanita thought it might be her mother. But then she inhaled, the woman's aura like a hand around her heart, and the resemblance fled.

She wore black trimmed with white, a red ribbon tied at her neck. Her every step bled shadow around her like ripples in a pond.

The woman spoke to Sakuya. Shook her head. Turned to the other two. Jerked her head toward the door. The guests began to leave. Sakuya moved to show them out.

A hand touched Amanita's shoulder and she would have yelped if she'd had the breath for it.

Meiling took hold of her and pulled her away. Amanita stumbled, her head spinning, and Meiling just picked her up like a sack of potatoes and stowed her under one arm.

They left the overlook at a creep, and it was only when they were safely into the next hallway that Meiling sped up. It wasn't flying, but it was close. She was leaping, covering dozens of meters at a time, wood paneling and portraits blurring around them, lamps streaking.

"W-who was that?" Amanita said hoarsely.

"Remilia has guests," Meiling whispered. "Because of the incident. She always uses Yukari's absence to scheme. I'd tell you not to tell anyone, but I'm pretty sure everyone who matters knows by now."

Amanita thought of the three women. Of the black-hole shaped like a person. Yukari was supposed to be invincible, but… could someone like that match her? Whatever she'd stumbled into here was bigger than her. Something for adults. For people who could walk down a hall under their own power. Who could protect their friends.

Someone who wasn't her.

She sagged around Meiling's arm. "Your secret's safe with me."

Meiling chuckled softly, but continued running.

They continued on through the manor for several minutes, with Meiling taking more turns at random. Amanita tried to keep track, but quickly lost all sense of direction beyond her faint, general plant-youkai sense of 'where the sun is.'

It was hard to breathe with Meiling holding her like a sack. She voiced it to Meiling, expecting the gardener to just set her down, but she didn't. Instead, Meiling hoisted her into a piggyback carry without breaking stride.

They exited through a door and came out on a small statue garden. Meiling navigated the winding path, weaving between the weathered forms of men and women before re-entering the mansion. They couldn't have gone more than five meters outside, but the sitting room they entered bore no resemblance to the seemingly endless hallway they'd been in before, and Amanita flinched as her solar-sense jerked wildly.

She'd known the SDM was ridiculously, unreasonably large for a place that only housed a half-dozen women and their maids, but this was beyond all expectation. Now that she was paying attention to it, her solar-sense was shifting subtly with every turn they took, and even sometimes at random. The dimensions to the house made no _sense_.

Meiling took two rights, entered a doorway, and instead of coming out in the hallway they'd just left, came into somewhere entirely new. A small flight of stairs leading up to a set of grand doors.

They stopped outside, and Meiling let her down. Amanita swayed on her feet. The spatial mess made her head ache, but now that they'd slowed it had eased. It did nothing for her exhaustion, or her blisters, or the simmering terror of the women Remilia had been hosting.

"We're here," Meiling said, and pushed open one of the door.

Amanita walked in, and immediately felt more of her aches fade away.

 _Voile_.

If the mansion bent space, the library ignored it entirely. This though, she was glad for. Bookshelves stretched as far as the eye could see. It was like the pictures of Outside cities she'd seen in books, only instead of buildings and towers, there were shelves and shelves. Blocks and risers and cliffs, some with sky-bridges connecting sections, others separated by platforms or walls. It was a topography made entirely of literature.

Amanita inhaled slowly, tasting old paper and ink. She exhaled, feeling her shoulders loosen.

"Oh, honestly…" Meiling was groaning beside her. "I should have guessed with your parents. Another bookworm."

Amanita gave her a smile. "Thank you, Meiling. I wouldn't have made it here without your help."

"Don't steal any of the books and we'll call it even." Meiling tousled Amanita's hair, scattering twigs and leaves that had been caught in it, and was just departing, the door closing behind her, when she paused.

"Margatroid."

Meiling was in the doorframe, half-hidden behind the door. She had turned, one reptilian eye narrowed through the gap.

"Yes?"

"Stay in the library. If you need to leave, have Patchouli send for me and I'll escort you out. Keep away from the maids. Don't let them see if you if you can help it. Words carry, and it's… it would be better if Remilia didn't see you at the moment. She's in a _mood_." Amanita nodded to show she understood. Or thought she did. "Good. You seem like a nice kid, but this isn't something for kids."

Amanita nodded again, and Meiling smiled. The door slid shut and she was gone.

She stared at the wooden barrier for a long moment, weighing over Meiling's words. The SDM was looking like a worse and worse choice. Like she'd maybe have had a better chance if she just stayed in the forest with all the youkai, than here, where there were webs and undertow that she knew nothing about. Nothing, but that she was nothing in comparison.

Amanita sighed slowly and glanced around the library for a moment before finding a chair. She removed her shoes before peeling off her socks. The left came away with the visceral tug of raw skin dried in place, and she hissed through her teeth at the bloody spot she'd left on the fabric.

Holding her shoes in one hand, she pocketed her socks and got up. She walked slowly into the maze of shelves.

There was nowhere to go but forward.

Voile changed its layout occasionally, but the larger shape remained the same. She knew Patchouli hated disorganization enough that the books were carefully inventoried and ordered, grouped together by topic.

But it didn't help her find the magician. And she wasn't going to start yelling. It was a _library_.

She'd never had the chance to spend much time here, and never alone. It was proving to be an exercise in temptation, as just walking down the first set of shelves had her glancing over a dozen different books that looked interesting. But if Patchouli was anything like her mother- and she was, then the books were either booby-trapped or warded for interference.

Amanita folded her hands in her armpits to prevent herself from grabbing, and kept walking. She limped through what looked like a history section before crossing the border into biography. She was just moving from regular to auto-biography when something brushed past her.

It was like brushing through spider thread, only she caught the stray tips of woven magic falling away, and then-

' _Kirisame detected. Defenses activating.'_ An artificial voice from nowhere.

A shrill alarm began sounding, half-birdsong, half horn. Books began toppling off the shelves. Scattershot, falling like paper rain, only none struck the ground. They paused in midair, pages riffling furiously, only to stop and bare pages inked with blazing magical seals.

Amanita had only a second to drop her shoes and run before they opened fire.

Danmaku tore down the aisle, magical discharge putting her hair even more on end than normal, stray lightning crackling through the bookshelves. It chained, the more books that fired, the more defenses activated, the shelves coming alive ahead of her, their tomes joining the assault.

She ran faster than she ever had before. Faster than she knew she could.

The only reason they didn't hit her immediately is because the aisles were narrow enough that only so many books could aim at her at once, and they had to pick their shots so as not to damage the other library stock.

Amanita ran with fire licking her heels. She hurtled to the end of the aisle and turned, feet sliding across polished wood, and then threw herself forward, narrowly avoiding the oncoming curtain of bullets.

"Aaiiiiii ohmygods whyyyy!" she squealed, flinging herself down an aisle at random.

And immediately skidded to a halt.

The defenses had activated into a solid wall of books in front of her, all open, all shining with magical energy.

"You have to be kidding m-"

They fired.

A solid wall of rainbow bullets filled her world.

Her last conscious thought was to wonder what in the hells her mom had done to warrant this kind of attention.

XXX

 _Awareness came slowly._

 _She was awake. Recognition came a few moments later. She wasn't dead. She had been in the mansion's library, and she'd gotten… blasted?_

 _Amanita blinked._

 _Tried to blink._

 _Attempted to frown at her inability to blink._

 _Panic flared inside her- where_ _ **that**_ _was she didn't know, because she didn't seem to have a body._

 _It was like the time she'd done astral projection with Reiko, her mind and spirit departed from the physical to walk the ether, only now there was no tether to her body._

 _Amanita's inner monologue took up her missing mouth's task of screaming._

 _She reached out, trying to find the limits of her spirit, clutching for a boundary, a line at which she might find her way back to reality. And this was wrong too, because her spirit was spread out across almost a dozen square meters, instead of the neat simulacra of her form it should be. She was almost gaseous._

 _Amanita tugged. The boundary moved inward a bit._

 _If she'd had a mouth, she'd have sighed in relief._

 _More focus, and the edges crept inward. They gained momentum as they came, little bits and pieces, specks of_ Amanita _falling into place. A current formed. Bits clumped, then combined, growing larger and larger as they fused with other clusters._

 _The momentum was stronger now, the pieces coming into position without conscious direction. As if they knew where to go._

 _It took more moments of frantically observing her spirit to check, but Amanita was able to confirm that her pieces- and why was that even a thing – were beginning to reform her spiritual body._

 _Clumps and lumps became shapes. Shape gained definition. Texture._

 _Function._

 _With a bizarre, itching, prickling sensation like having cotton fiber brushed across the raw flesh of her eye, Amanita_ blinked _._

She could see once more.

Still in the library, just above a pile a rags and ashes that- had she been **vaporized**?! What kind of lunatic defense did Patchouli have here?

Her skin knit itself together, not from spirit as she'd initially thought, but from some kind of odd, powdery material that was floating through the air around her remains. It was only when one of her hands reformed and she had a change to touch it that Amanita realized what the white dust was.

Spores.

She'd reformed from a cloud of spores. Not astral projection at all, but reproduction. Had she exploded into spores like some kind of smushed mushroom? That was…

That… was...

Amanita's mouth reformed. The external came first, lips molding, followed by the internal carving their way into her body with an incomprehensible _digging_ sensation. Esophagus, followed by lungs.

She inhaled.

Her scream became external. Not shrieking now, but the low, constant, breathless whine of someone pushed far beyond normalcy.

"-aahhhhhhhhh-"

There was a noise behind her.

Amanita turned- she could do that now, because she had feet.

The woman had hair like a crow, black with a purplish sheen, and wore a maid's outfit, complete with apron. Except she also had batlike wings on her back, and two sets of horns poking from her scalp. The first set were as long as Amanita's index finger, and the second just nubs.

She was currently pointing at Amanita and making a very similar sound. "Ahhhh-"

"Aahhhh!" Amanita yelled back.

The maid continued pointing and screaming.

Amanita tried to continue doing so, but her scream tapered off. She'd run out of breath.

She took an unsteady step forward. Legs. She had definite legs now. She looked down just to make sure, because she was never taking legs for granted again.

She was also naked.

There were footsteps, and then three more people joined them in the aisle. Two more maids; one was Koakuma, the other an unknown.

And a woman in a purple gown, her arms full with a heavy tome.

The book hit the floor with a noise like thunder.

Patchouli Knowledge stared at her, her mouth open.

Koakuma gave her a thumbs up and grinned.

The maid continued screaming.

Amanita wondered if she couldn't just go back to being spores.

XXX

This one went through a bunch of different drafts. Kept trying to do more with Amanita sneaking through the SDM on her own to get to the library after she and Meiling get separated, but it was all just... Xeno's Race kinda stuff. Delaying the actual plot on more travel, when that was basically last chapter too.

I wanted to do something emphasizing Amanita, rather than having her just carried there by Meiling, but instead we get one of Amanita's powers- one that she didn't know she had, and a somewhat more amusing finish.

Not 100% happy with how it turned out. If you have any constructive criticism or think it might look better a different way, I'm all ears.  
And yes, that is Team Nine meeting Remilia.


End file.
